Shenandoah National Park
Elevation: 4000 ft
Location: Stony Man Mountain/Blue Ridge Mountains
Note: The chill of New Hampshire in January can be challenging for cross-training hikers, and mountain climbers. Temperatures reach into the teens, and often below zero, making “megalithic-mountain research” a dangerous endeavor. I brainstormed less dangerous possibilities this month; North North America is massive Continent. Ultimately I figured I would go where the cold wasn’t. Enter the possibility of: Virginia.
With my work at Bentley University at an unfortunate impasse, due to Covid19, I decided to make a move, driving 550 miles south to the Shenandoah Mountain Range of Virginia. I finally entered the dimension that is beautiful Virginia. It was gorgeous, even in January.
With temperatures at 45-50 degrees, and the Sun shining, I cruised into the hidden caverns and valleys at the heart of Virginia. It is literally a golden zone of hidden valleys, crafted by the massive parallels of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Within those outer parallel shafts, other peaks ripple massively in an asymmetrical miasma that crafts miniature valleys within valleys below.
The entirety of Shenandoah National Park can be driven on the single Highway known as Skyline Drive, running straight through the Blue Ridge. There is a $30 entry fee at the elevated entrance of this incredible Park, and then you are set free to choose a trail. There are dozens of forest-trails and peaks to choose from along Skyline’. I had read some interesting commentaries about Stony Man Mountain Trail, a 4000 foot peak about half-way up Skyline Drive, where the stones have been noted by hikers as having interesting fixtures and shapes, depicting a “man in the mountain“. That was the place for me. I immediately I was struck by what I saw. There was magic in this place, right from the start.
Note2: Stony Man Mountain: One of the major themes of Stonestrider.com is identifying unique and sacred zones that distinguish themselves through Anthropological Geology. These vast rocky cultural zones show practically impossible fixtures of stone(s), found in finely focused areas. There are serious mathematical patterns and indicators within these fixtures indicating an intended meaning, rather than merely random glacial spasms. The beginning of the Trail leads directly into an explosion of mossy green stone fixtures, with a straightforward path.The golden-brown wintery haze of leafless trees and soily hills in the vast lower valleys below abruptly changes into a temple of mossy megalithic stone, beginning just off Skyline Drive. Virginia very suddenly looks like New England, or Northern Ireland. The stones seem to always converge, almost manically, at the peaks of Ranges all throughout the Western Hemisphere.
There are also indicators for alternate meanings literally etched into the overall pathway, leading to the peak. Imagine the shape of a spiral, carved into the mountain, radiating centrally from the peak, like the shape of a conch sea-shell. The phenomenon of thresholds appear here at Stony Man’. These are specifically sized, and lined, linear stone markers, placed in a planned ratio of size scale and space. This pattern creates what appears to be levels of a spiral path, purposefully written into the Mountain. Below is an image of the first threshold at Stony Man’. Notice that the stones are fitted, and quite large, against the reference of my foot. Roughly 150 yards further up the Trail, and almost 35 feet higher in elevation, is as second threshold, with stones roughly 1/3rd the size larger than the stones of the previous threshold. (Image/Below)
This pattern continues, increasing in terms of size, scale, and distance, with at least 7 more thresholds winding up the Mountain. The point of acknowledging these thresholds is to recognize that the megalithic stones of these sacred peaks seem to be relating specific meanings and fixtures of stone on a grand scale. For emphasis, thresholds are also found along sacred peaks at Monument Mountain in Massachusetts, Mount Katahdin Maine, Clark Peak in the Rockies of Colorado, Rocky Woods in Massachusetts, Mount Bearnagh in Ireland, and The Half Dome at Yosemite. This is a consistently identified megalithic event of a specific crafting type, other than ‘linings’ and Dolmens, that appears to be indicating a mathematical marking of the landscape, towards the peaks.
There also appears to be collections of crafted-stone, fixtures carved distinctly into the stony ramparts of the hillside. Just as it is with many of the megalithic stones of Greece and Egypt, there seems to be a molten shaping of these long linear stones, as seen below. The heat it would take to congeal, and then craft these stones, is technologically intense, and extremely hard to justify, if the proof of the stones were not directly before us. This appears to be exactly what happened: Molten heat for mingling the stones, then crafting of long linear interlinking pieces.
I have seen similar fixtures at the peak at Mount Bearnagh. As you can see below, at Mount Bearnagh’s peak the stones appear to be randomly stacked at first glance, but a closer more considerate glance, reveals crafted indented intervals of markings that measure the fixture. Also note that the measurement is not inches, or centimeters. It is some other system, entirely.
Continuing along the Trail at Stony Man’ there are other crafted fixtures that seem to have meaning. Several stones seem to have been crafted to indicate the directionality of the Sun’s route across the sky. These identically fixed and cut boulders that eternally depict directional apexes, seem to be pointing to the point of the setting Sun in the skyline. (Image/Below)
I came across stones very similar in form in New Hampshire just six months earlier: (Image/Below) At the half way point of the Trail, an incredible outlook appears on a high cliff facing cardinal South. All of Virginia is laid-out before you, like a golden-fleece flowing low, and lovely, into the distant ground level beyond. The Trail continues at a comfortable incline back into the upper forest, and into the upper 3rd of the Peak. Consistent with the pattern of ‘intensified stone statements, the higher you go’, there are what look like sets of fixtures, craftings for sitting in specific positions, centrications, and cliff supports made of overflowing stacked-stone.
As you ascend through these incredible caverns towards the peak, the Trail takes on a magical cinematic look, with a glowing frost fixed to the fingers of the thousands of branches above.
This upper Trail reminded me of the scene at various points of Monument Mountain in Massachusetts, where outlooks just off the main trail emerge just before the peak. The path to these porches look like magical frost portals lit by the Sun.
The inner thickets also have this glowing quality:
Here, at the vista just before the Peak, the view is stellar, with domes of frost folding over hundreds of times, into the Shenandoah Valley. (Image/Below)
There are crafted megalithic indents on these stone porches as well: (Image/Below)And just 50 yards beyond this vista, is the Peak. (Image/Below)There also appears to be a stone design at the Peak porch, looking back at the Mountain path: (Image/Below)
In my single experience at Stony Man Mountain I did not find specific standing-stones, or the typical cross-sections (X) I am accustomed to finding, cut into the stone. I believe that with more time to study Stony Man’ these specific markings could be found. Still, this Trail and Peak is clearly and suddenly inundated with distinctly crafted hillsides of Celtic looking stone, entirely different from the soily persuasion of the overall Valley. (Image/Below)
It is a strong possibility that thePeak at Stony Man’ was sanctified by craftsmanship, and among the earliest forms of functional temples mingled into the landscape itself, as in New England, Ireland, Massachusetts, Sardinia, Wales, Colorado, Maine, Greece, Spain, Peru, and many more places besides.
I recommend hiking this Trail in Autumn if you can, but even in Winter, it surprises even a seasoned climber with elements of unpredictable beauty. In this place, recharge, get away from the fake news-cycle, and pray for protection in the coming days. Just beyond the boarders of these vast views of Virginia, in Washington D.C, a haunt of vipers and spiders are now dropping the most massive iron-curtain upon freedom loving humans in the history of the world. Reject them. Continue to cross-train in the hills and peaks of the Ranges of the world; Breath deep; Think bright thoughts, and pray for the United States of America, and the World, to overcome this new evil . And as always, do what you need to do, to go strong.
Love and thanks to dear friends Kathy and Paul, who helped make this much needed venture possible, with a beautiful homestead to stay in Virginia,
Please send any comments, or thoughts to: jpv@stonestrider.com.